


Sealturtle Surfing

by MadameFluffnStuff



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Action & Romance, Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Pirate, Badass Katara (Avatar), Badass Sokka (Avatar), Big Brother Sokka (Avatar), F/M, FirstMate!Sokka, Hurt/Comfort, Katara (Avatar)-centric, Lots and lots and lots of world building, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, PIRATES BABYYY, PirateCaptain!Katara, Precious Aang (Avatar), Protective Katara (Avatar), Protective Sokka (Avatar), Sokka is the big brother Aang never had, don't wanna spoil:), no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-29
Updated: 2020-10-29
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:40:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27263614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadameFluffnStuff/pseuds/MadameFluffnStuff
Summary: Katara of the Southern Water Tribe was a doting sister and a pirate without equal. She had captainedThe Last Airbenderalongside her brother—her First Mate—ever since she found the ship in the ice when she was a girl.No one knew why the Fire Nation wanted the Air Nomad’s relics, especially after collecting a hundred years of dust.It didn’t matter. If the Fire Nation wanted it, Katara wouldn’t let them have it. She’d bedamnedif they ever controlled her ocean.Besides, the Avatar was just a myth.And ‘The Boy in the Box’—as Katara had come to call him—had eyes like pirate’s silver and was as much alivingrelic as she had ever seen.“Will you go sealturtle surfing with me?”
Relationships: Aang & Sokka (Avatar), Aang/Katara (Avatar), Katara & Sokka (Avatar), Katara & The Gaang (Avatar)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 29





	Sealturtle Surfing

**Author's Note:**

> Katara and Sokka pay their respects.

_ Fucking Fuck Fuck—Fucking  _ **_damn_ ** _ it all! _

Snarling, Katara threw her hands up. Her braid was not cooperating, and she was  _ not _ in the mood for this. It was stiff from saltwater and nearly as stubborn as Sokka claimed she was. The wind wasn’t exactly  _ helping _ , the bastard, and Katara spat out two more clumps of thick hair before she tamed it into a low ponytail.

“ _ Finally. _ ”

Katara hugged her leg and plopped her chin on her knee. The moon was full and brighter than normal. It tinted everything an inky blue hue and turned the ocean into wavy tar. It leaked into her skin like sunshine on a clear day, but even the moon’s faint buzz in her blood couldn’t chase away the numbness. 

As per usual, the ‘high-risk traders’ of  _ The Last Airbender _ were dumping their pay into the local economy. Their shares of gold and silver had barely touched their fingers before being slammed on a tavern’s bar or a brothel’s table. The dull chorus of their cheers and hoots was far beneath and beyond Katara’s ledge. They were a blip of fire and orange light like their happiness was burning bright enough to eclipse the dark.

The locals, too, were celebrating on the splintered boards they called their townsquare. The platform was strutted on rotten beams and was wedged between seven houses. Their foreign dances and songs were almost familiar enough to make Katara smile.

_ Dancing... _

Katara’s chest caved in. She tried not to think about the last time she danced. She hugged her leg a little tighter while the other dangled over the ledge— _ her _ ledge. The heel of her boot mutely clicked on stone and moss as it swung to the beat of the tide hugging the shore. The quiet  _ hush _ of the sea was the earth’s heartbeat, and Katara soon found herself inhaling with its every recede and exhaling with its every wave until her crew, the locals, and even some of the numbness was drowned out.

Katara considered the drink in her hand. The froth went flat a long time ago. The golden liquid glistened with sour possibility and had a shine like polished amber. 

She had never tried alcohol beyond a few sips. She had seen what it turned men into. Just the  _ thought _ of losing control of her body made her skin crawl.

But she has one, nonetheless. It was fucking expensive, too. Another cup sat beside her.

Katara raised her glass to the moon. “...Happy fucking Avatar Day,” she mumbled to the wind.

She poured her drink out over the ledge.

A festival for a myth. How quaint. 

The breeze that greeted her toast was cold, but the wind that came off the ocean was warm. The sea’s gentle splashes, distant but still close, sunk into her every muscle like a tranquilizer. It smelled like home and looked how she imagined heaven felt, especially when its waves were dressed in skirts of moonlight. 

_ Katara dug in her heels, but her sealturtle-skin booties were no match for her Mother’s gentle nudges. Katara was pushed forward like a plow in the powder. _

_ “I don’t wanna…I don’t wanna, Mama...” _

_ Her mother smiled, first sympathetically and then encouragingly when she picked Katara up and sat her on her hip. She kissed Katara’s cheek until she smiled and giggled. Her tiny hand patted her face. _

_ “Katara, honey, you should go play with the other children. I know you like helping me around the hut—and I very much appreciate you helping Mommy—, but you’ve been cooped up with me for too long, darling. The long nights will be here soon, and then it’ll be too cold to stay out, remember? Don’t you want to play with Nina?” _

_ Katara scrunched her brow, held her mother’s dress like she was dropping anchor, and nodded. “You stay?” _

_ “I’ll stay with you as long as you need me.” _

Katara smiled. Nina was one of the few girls from her Tribe who was her age. The two of them got in and out of so much trouble back then. Her father even played dumb and vouched for them if they toed the line of getting into  _ real _ trouble.

Katara glanced beside her at the remnants of her small fire. The smoke bleeding from the charred remains reminded her too much of home and Gran-Gran.

_ The canoe hurt when Gran-Gran threw Katara into it, but Sokka was holding her before she could protest. It hurt to breathe. The air was thick and hot and burned her face if she didn’t hide it in her parka. _

_ “—so much, my little moon and brave warrior. So,  _ so _ much. You stay together and don’t come back unless I come get you. Sokka—” Gran-Gran coughed and nearly fell forward. The sky was orange and wavy-looking even though it was nighttime, and Katara thought the terrible sounds were a glacier breaking apart until she recognized the voices behind each scream. “—ta’e care ‘f your sist’r…” _

Katara closed her eyes. The air wasn’t hot or wavy like it was back then, but it was just as hard to breathe. 

The ocean grew louder, like it was a friend sitting beside her. Its song laced with a melody that caught her under a spell. Slow waves picked up the pieces of her heart, and a gentle gust wiped away what was almost tears. The sea smacked the black stones along the shore in a  _ hiss _ so loud and strong that it turned a hundred dying screams into watery static, and the wind brought the taste and smell of fresh brine to Katara’s senses. 

Katara looked at her drink again—her second cup. The temptation was luke-warm and smelled like berries. The wind was warm and smelled like salt. 

She sighed, and more than her breath left her. “...Happy anniversary.”

She poured the drink out over the ledge, and she placed the cup next to the incense and seal jerky on the velvet cloth beside her.

Her brother’s footsteps were muted like a polarpanther on the hunt, and they were so calculated that Katara nearly froze like he was one. He stopped a few paces behind her and rustled a few ferns to let her know he was there.

The ocean filled the silence as Sokka waited for his question to be answered. Another minute passed before Katara scooted over so he could sit beside her.

Sokka didn’t drink alcohol, either, for much the same reason as her, but he carried a large tavern’s cup in his hand. It smelled like something warm and nutty, and its color gleamed clear—almost white—when he poured it out over the ledge. 

The whispers of small animals joined the waves and their silence. The celebrations felt like a world away. 

Sokka’s smile was warm, but his brief little side-hug was even warmer. He respected Katara’s bubble of quiet and silently took out his boomerang. He had forged it himself on the mainland. It was black and heat-treated with acid and batviper venom so the metal flashed blue in the right light. It was shaped just like their father’s, but Sokka claimed he could throw it twice as well.

Her brother busied himself with refining his weapon. He usually did the task—a ritual nearly holy to him—with a Navigator’s precision. Katara was as used to hearing the tempo of him sharpening his tools as she was to hearing his voice. But, this time, the strokes of his whetstone were slow, almost lazy. The smooth licks on the boomerang’s sharpened edge fell in sync with the hushed pull and push of the tide.

It was like when they were younger in their first weeks alone, and he tried so hard to calm her during a lightning storm. She had scared him, then. His hushes and coos were forced as he struggled to keep his own trembling in check—the desperate pleas between clenched teeth so much like a whetstone on metal.

Katara lost herself in the moon’s reflection along the horizon. She reminded herself to thank him later.

“The long nights are coming.” She spoke as softly as the wind kissed their faces. “We should take advantage while we can, especially with the Fire Nation refusing to give up on that  _ stupid _ blockade they think I‘ll let them build.” She turned to him, but Sokka didn’t stop sharpening. “Well? What do you think? The Solstice will be here sooner than later.” 

“I think, little sister, that you need to stop thinking so much.” He gave her a look that made her repress the urge to stick her tongue out at him. “I could smell the smoke of your gears burning from all the way in town. It’s still leaking out your ears.”

Sokka poked her earlobe, and Katara swatted him away. She smiled, just for a second. It was a small expression, barely there before it was gone, and she was locking eyes with the ocean before he stopped laughing. 

The silence was sharpened with the slides of Sokka’s whetstone and cut with the ghost of Katara’s voice.

“...Sokka?”

“Hm?”

“Do you remember that song Gran-Gran always sang to us?”

Sokka huffed a laugh. “All I remember is her attitude and her cooking. I don’t know what she did to those sea prunes, but they were to  _ die _ for. Dad could eat a whole barrel of those things.”

“...Did she have blue eyes?”

Sokka stopped sharpening. He tried not to look at her, but Katara could feel the concern from his stare burning holes into the ferns far below them.

“Yeah. Mom’s were the same. You have them, too. The same kind of blue. Mine are a bit darker, like dad’s, but yours are just like hers.”

Sokka looked at her. Katara’s eyes, same as their mother’s, were half-lidded and framed by a skeptically raised brow.

“I’m serious! Though your stink-eye is something demonic—Ow.”

Katara’s laugh had some life back in it, and Sokka tried to put as much effort into making his sound lively enough for them both. 

The moment was gone as fast as it arrived. Something heavy sat on them, and Katara plucked the grass with her free hand. “...Eight years,” she mumbled.

Sokka tried to wave off the atmosphere. “Eight years aren’t a big deal. I mean, it’s not  _ that _ long.”

“It was a lifetime for Nina.” Katara yanked the grass a little harder. “And Tula.”

“...Yeah. Sure, it was. But that was a lifetime ago.”

Katara laughed again, but there was no laughter in the sound. “Exactly my point.” She dumped her collection of grass onto his once spotless boomerang and savored his mildly grumpy growl. “Did you pay your respects?”

“Yeah. A few of the guys joined me.”

“A family affair?”

“Something like that. You’ll see on the way down when you’re done being depressing.”

“Oh? You have plans or somewhere to be?”

“Word around town is the Southern Raiders docked port a few miles North from here. On their way to the homeland, probably. I fixed the spokes on one of the merchant’s carts in exchange for info and, quite frankly, I got the  _ way _ better end of the bargain.”

“Did he say which colors they were flying?” 

“Yeah. Definitely second fleet. They were Sea Ravens.”

Katara narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips to one side like she always did when given new information to chew on. “I assume he told you more?”

Sokka spat on the grass-residue clinging to his boomerang, savored his sister’s disgusted cringe, and gave the tempered metal an old-fashioned spit-shine. “The guy came into town this morning in time for the festival. Just saw the Raiders in passing, but he  _ did _ stop for some business with them.” Sokka dug into his coat. “I bought the relics he haggled from ‘em. He got them stupid cheap, but I checked them out, and they’re real.” 

Katara held the skybison-whistle close to her face. The stone was marble-soft from use—no false-weathering. Even the lip-piece and inner belly of the whistle were perfectly smooth from the user conducting instead of blowing air into it. 

The beaded prayer necklace checked out as well, but the scroll gave Katara pause. The paper was brown with age—well over a few centuries—and was inscribed with a language she didn’t recognize and in a style of calligraphy that felt like a song when she looked at it.

Katara’s blood boiled. “Those firebreathing fucks…” She didn’t recognize the script, but the sacred visages and illustrations were easy enough to identify. “They’re digging deep.” She gently rolled it up. “This scroll was probably stored in a hidden archive or vault of some kind. Or behind a loose brick in a wall. They’re getting desperate.”

Sokka held up a finger and pretended to look important. “Correction, dear baby sister: They  _ were _ desperate.”

Katara dangled both her legs off the ledge and bent forward with her hands laced like she was negotiating with a crime syndicate. “How do you mean?”

“The old man said the  _ entire  _ Raiders’ crew didn’t touch a single woman or drink while they were docked.”

_ That _ caught Katara’s attention. “Were they on the run from something? Or were they the ones chasing something on the run?”

“Neither. Merchant just went on about how weird it was that they were so on guard.”

“They need their wits about them. They’re preparing for something.”

“ _ Prepared _ for something. They had a sister ship with them that was armed to the teeth.”

“Sounds serious.”

“They  _ also _ weren’t the ones hauling the cargo or the relics. He said the Southern Raiders were supposedly there as a security detail for the Southern Sirens. And  _ none _ of the Sirens got off their ship while docked.”

Katara’s grin was predatory, and her hum was too happy for words. “ _ Very _ serious,” she drawled.

“So?” Sokka bumped her shoulder and gave her a shit-eating grin. “What say you, Captain Katara?”

“You’re absolutely certain they were traveling together? The Raiders and the Sirens?”

“Yep.”

“And you corroborated this evidence with more than one source?”

“Yep.”

“Trustworthy ones?”

“Yep.”

“How was it squeezed out?”

“Bribed two, threatened one. He only peed his pants a little bit.”

Katara tried and failed to hide her excitement. Even the tide swelled and clapped against the stones louder than before. “Their entourage within range?”

Sokka puffed his chest. “Yeeeeeeep!”

Katara tried not to roll her eyes  _ too  _ hard. “...You already told the crew we’re going to nab the biggest hit of our careers, didn’t you?”

Sokka smiled something deadly.

Katara shook her head but couldn’t help but smile. How could she say no? If the Fire Nation wanted something, she wouldn’t let them have it.

And they were  _ desperate _ for whatever the hell this was.

Besides, the Southern Raiders left her and Sokka homeless. The Southern Sirens left the Temples empty. They were equally bastards fighting on the same team, but they were by no means friends. 

To sink ships from  _ both _ of them at once and loot whatever was important enough for them to call a truce on their pissing contest? 

It was impossible for her to say no.

“My instincts say there’s something big on there,” Sokka said.

Something tugged Katara’s gut, like the tide lapping the shore.

“I think your instincts are right.”

Katara tucked her fingers to her cheeks and whistled a sharp sound. The ocean of cheers that answered her nearly shook the townsquare as her crew scrambled to begin the hunt. 

Sokka yelled something about racing her before he took off down the steep slope. Katara was right on his heels with a smile refusing to leave her face. The Watertribe siblings dove between trees and drifted parallel to the ground around steep enough turns.

Then the ground flattened.

Katara paused by the lone tombstone tucked away under a roof of roots from an eroded spot in the hill. It was hidden and away from the path  _ just _ enough to be protected from a hurricane wiping it away. It stood like a shrine.

The tombstone and the ground around it for an impressively considerable distance was covered in piss.

Katara laughed long and loud, and the wind carried her joy and tripled her glee. 

She was wiping a tear from her eye when she unholstered one of her pistols in a fluid movement she didn’t need to think about. The crunching  _ ping  _ of her bullet shattering another hole—the eighth—into Yan Rha’s name gave her a rush like she was falling through clouds. 

She holstered her pistol and was smiling like a banshee when she flipped off the rock with both middle fingers.

Katara wasn’t the helpless little girl she was back then.

“Eat shit, motherfucker.”

Katara was a captain, now.

Katara spat on the reeking stone, felt a bit better, and was still smiling when she jogged into town. The splintered floorboards of the partially-raised city creaked and threatened to give under her boots. Houses leaned together and into each other in some streets as she made her way towards the dock. 

Katara laughed her hardest when she ran through a tunnel under two bowing houses. Wanted posters like inky mirrors reflected her smile back to her. She had half a mind to be miffed when she read that her brother’s bounty had gone up a hundred gold coins more than hers, even though she was still the Fire Nation’s number one. She nearly jumped and clicked her heels when some of her straggling crew fell in behind her with their arms full of her  _ fabulously _ rendered image to be used when nature called. 

Katara stepped onto the dock like it was the threshold of her palace. The ocean was her home, now. It and its winds. The wind was birthed by the ocean, after all. The waves churned the air and gifted it currents to twirl in, and both air and water always rushed to meet her.

Katara breathed deep and smelled salt and adventure. The wind brought her nothing to fear. It blew from behind her as if pushing her forward. The sea was calling her again, just like it always had. 

She itched to be out on the water, and she couldn’t recall ever having an urge this strong. 

A little boy with a burn on his shoulder stopped Katara before the gangplank. He was tired and well-fed and looked like he just learned how to smile. 

He was missing several baby teeth, and his laugh was hoarse like a sick person learning to speak again. He hugged her legs. Katara paused and, when she touched his head, couldn’t hide her relief when she didn’t feel the burning of a deadly fever anymore. 

“Thank you, Painted Lady.”

Katara laughed. “Painted Lady? What’s a—?”

“Kuyo?” The boy’s mother kept Katara from asking him further questions. Kuyo’s mother found them and was at their side with a mother’s speed. “Kuyo, it’s time to go home.”

The boy’s mother, her face not as sunken as before, smiled and shook Katara’s hand. She tried to sneak a few gold coins into her palm, but Katara had played this game with her long enough to see it coming. She slipped the woman a few extra and smiled her triumph. The woman knew better than to challenge the Captain twice, so she shook her head and headed home with little Kuyo, happy and healthy, in tow.

Katara walked up the gangplank more than a little confused. 

Painted Lady?

That was a new one. She was used to the insulting, the fetishized, and the legendary titles, sure, but ‘Painted Lady’ was random at least and outlandish at worst—

Oh wait.

Katara laughed.

The boy was just talking about her tattoos.

“Captain on deck!” Sokka shouted from just beside the helm. The chaos of ropes and barrels and cursing chants came to a halt just long enough for Katara to face a sea of hungry-happy smiles and to hear a chorus of righteous battlecries.

Katara was at the helm in the next instant with Sokka just at her shoulder. Her First Mate and Navigator—the best that ever was on the ocean—read the stars in a glance, but it almost wasn’t needed. The wind tugged them forward. The ocean pushed them along. 

Katara welcomed the fuel of the wind and ocean mist. It filled her like steam in a pot and left her chest in a hardy laugh. The sky was clear, the ocean wanton for her. 

This was where she belonged.

The ocean breathed beneath her, and she never felt more alive. Orange sails snapped to attention with a belly full of wind eager to serve her. The breeze carried the essence of the sea into her lungs. The ocean and the freedom that flew from its waves consumed every part of her. 

Katara danced her fingers along knobs of worn wood and spun the helm due north. The ocean sang to her as they picked up speed, and Katara didn’t notice the sea-shanty being sung until Sokka, still at her shoulder, sloppily threw his arm around her like he had been drinking all night and joined in like his voice was trying to shatter glass.

Katara would kick him away in a minute. For now, everything felt perfect.

The two of them were the last of their people.

Her ship was the last of another’s.

Katara ducked below for only a second to get dressed in her raiding clothes. She slid them on like she was getting dressed for a ball. 

She loaded her pistols when she was back at the helm. The town was long behind them, and the full moon and eager ocean were their only company, now.

She brandished her pistols with something better than pride.

Tui and La—silver and embossed with the names of every raider she sent to the spirits. 

Katara was always taught that revenge was never the answer, but  _ damn _ did it make her feel better.

Katara laughed until her First Mate did, too.

The stage was calm and painted with gentle waves. The music was laughter and a hundred foaming splashes.

Katara smiled, holstered her pistols, and threw fuel on the fire in her belly.

Katara of the Southern Water Tribe wasn’t that helpless little girl anymore.

She was the Captain of  _ The Last Airbender _ .

And she was ready to dance.

**Author's Note:**

> _ *Pirates of the Caribbean theme intensifies* _


End file.
